KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi at present mentioned that the officers of his ministry have recognized greater than 1,000 potential landslide areas throughout the nation.
Nevertheless, the ministry is unable to take preemptive measures as a result of lack of funds, he mentioned on Astro Awani programme Take into account This tonight.
“Sadly, we can not take mitigation actions or preemptive actions as a result of we’re fairly tight with what we now have by way of finance.
“We’ll do some mitigations, however oftentimes we now have to be extra reactive,” he mentioned.
Within the early morning incident on December 16, a complete of 92 victims had been concerned in a landslide on the Father’s Natural Farm campsite close to Batang Kali on the way in which to Gohtong Jaya.
Of these, 61 of whom survived, whereas 31 died. Of the variety of casualties, 18 had been adults and 13 had been youngsters, together with a one-year-old child.
The difficulty was the identical with highway upkeep as effectively, he mentioned, including that worldwide requirements name for roads to be resurfaced each 5 years or so relying on the kind of highway however that there have been Malaysian roads that haven’t been resurfaced for greater than 20 years.
“It’s very alarming. We all know that we now have to spend a lot cash to maintain the usual of our roads to that degree, however but due to our shortcomings by way of funding out there to us we can not really perform the upkeep as we should always.
“That to me is a bit miserable,” he lamented.
If an expired highway has not been repaired, the least that might occur was accidents, he defined.
He mentioned he would attraction to the Finance Ministry for the Works Ministry’s “fair proportion” of the upcoming Price range on the subject of the problem of sustaining ageing public infrastructure.
Nevertheless, he added that the federal government was attuned to the comfort and security of the individuals.
“It wouldn’t be proper to say the federal government will not be actually placing severe thought into upkeep,” he mentioned.
He additionally admitted that he had solely been in Works Ministry for 45 days and that he has to grasp higher the way it does issues.